photobyjohnbo

Lens-Artists Challenge #387—Shadowed

Family Shadows on the Shore

Shadows evoke mystery, wonder, nostalgia, and even a touch of fright. This week, consider how shadows shape your photos. Look for the places where light steps back. You can take a literal approach and photograph an actual shadow, or lean into contrast and mood—shapes, silhouettes, or scenes where darkness adds depth and character to your subject. You can keep your image in color or shift to black‑and‑white—each choice shapes how the shadows influence the mood. My first example was taken in Mazatlán in 2006 with a simple Fuji point‑and‑shoot camera. I used automatic mode, and the camera’s light meter created this silhouette for me as it exposed for the bright sunset.

A Clash of Light and Shadow
A Clash of Light and Shadow

Landscape photos can benefit from the same approach—place the sun in the frame and expose for the highlights. In this example, the sun hides behind the clouds, but its rays stream through and illuminate a patch of water in Alaska’s Inside Passage. To bring detail back into the brightest area and emphasize the rays, I reduced the highlights in post. From there, I shaped the silhouette effect by adjusting the Shadows slider. In this image, I deepened the shadows and converted it to black-and-white with a light sepia overtone to add drama and heighten the moodiness.

Closed for the Night
Closed for the Night

Late at night on the Norwegian Pearl, I walked past one of the ship’s many bars. It was closed, but the lights along the front edge illuminated the precisely placed barstools. The repetition in the design and the surrounding shadows invited me to take a photo with my first DSLR, a Nikon D5100. This image, a JPEG from 2013, received only minimal edits in Photoshop Elements—I didn’t yet know about shooting or processing in RAW.

Cadillac Chrome in the Spotlight
Cadillac Chrome in the Spotlight

It was a bright January day in Scottsdale, Arizona, when I walked the tents of the Barrett‑Jackson Auto Auction with my Nikon D7000, the pre-owned replacement for my D5100 that I’d bought from a friend and fellow photographer after his upgrade. In 2017, I revisited the archive looking for images to convert to monochrome with my newly acquired Nik software, including Silver Efex. After choosing a contrasty preset, I began adjusting the highlights and shadows. What caught my attention was how the shadow from the tent roof isolated the front of the car. If you look closely, you can spot my reflection in the lower left corner of the bumper, along with the rows of open‑walled tents filled with cars for sale.

Music out of Light and Shadow
Music out of Light and Shadow

This photo of a musician performing in an Alaska bar was a challenging edit because the bright background lights illuminated the room through the window behind him. In Silver Efex, I chose a contrasty preset that emphasized the noise in this ISO 1400 image. I reduced the highlights as much as possible without making the lighting look unnatural, and the window backlight helped deepen the darkness around the stage. To further isolate the musician, I added a strong vignette to draw even more attention to the subject.

Crescent Moon-1
A Crescent Cut by Shadow

I don’t do a lot of astrophotography, but it wasn’t late, and the moon was remarkably bright even at this stage of its crescent. On December 20, 2020, it sat high in a clear winter sky, and the cold, dry air over North Dakota made the moonlight appear even sharper. I drove out into the countryside to take advantage of the dark sky and set up my tripod. The moon was so bright that I used a 1/500 shutter speed to capture the shadow details in the craters. The deep shadow hiding the left side of the moon adds a bit more mystery to our closest astral neighbor.

- A Building Marked by Memory—Dakota Apartments
A Building Marked by Memory

My last example features a New York apartment building with a shadow cast by the structures directly across the street. But that literal shadow doesn’t tell the story of this place. A far more poignant and emotional shadow hangs over the building for those who know what happened here on December 8, 1980, when John Lennon was shot outside its entrance. The facade catches the same afternoon light as any other building on the block, yet the memory of that night lingers—an unseen presence that shapes how many of us experience this view.

If you’re joining the Lens‑Artists for the first time, welcome—we’d love to see your work. To participate, simply create your own post responding to this week’s theme and include a link to this page so we can find you. Be sure to add the Lens‑Artists tag so your post appears in the WordPress Reader for others to discover. You can find more detailed instructions on how the challenge works here.

I’m looking forward to seeing your examples focusing on shadows in your images and how you choose to portray them. If you like to pixel‑peep or explore the metadata, these challenge photos are also available on my Flickr site here. Many thanks to Patti for last week’s inspiration. As we head into March, Ann‑Christine will surprise us with the next challenge. Be sure to follow her blog here so you get a notification when her challenge goes live.

John Steiner

137 comments

  2. What a beautifully curated set of images, John! The way you use shadow not just as a compositional tool but as a storytelling elment really stands out. The John Lennon apartment shot is particularly moving, the idea of an emotional shadow lingering over a place long after an event is such a profound way to think about photography. Your notes on post-processing are really helpful too, especially the detail about reducing highlights in the Alaska Inside Passage shot. Looking forward to seeing what the community shares for this challenge!

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  5. What a fantastic challenge, John. I love your wonderful gallery of examples. The Cadillac and the sun behind the clouds, Alaska are superb. Thank you for the great details on your processing techniques.

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  35. Extraordinary shadows, John, you’ve inspired me! We just arrived in Fountain Hills and the morning shadows were calling on the cacti, brittlebush and bougainvillea! I’ll share for the Flower Hour on Tuesday!

    Love the shaft of light on the moody ocean and the bar stools!

    Just an FYI, we’re looking into the park model homes in Tucson. Hope to catch up with you if you’re still in the area March 10-14!

    Reply

  49. You have such a varied selection of shadows here, all very effective. I really like the edit on the musician, and also how you’ve introduced the idea of an emotional shadow to our attention with that shot of the Dakota Building.

    I probably won’t join in this week as I feel I covered shadows rather extensively during Becky’s recent month of them last November!

    Reply

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